King Charles holds first meeting at Buckingham Palace before Harry’s visit

King Charles is officially returning to royal duties after his holidays at Sandringham Castle. as he conducts the first royal event of the year.

The Office of the monarch on Monday released insight into Charles’ first, albeit poignant, meeting of the year, just as Prince Harry is set to mark his return next month.

While Queen Camilla was not present with Charles to mark an important day for the 80 Candles for 80 Years project, the King honoured a special guest.

“Honouring Holocaust survivors and ensuring their stories are never forgotten,” the message read alongside a video of the events shared. “At Buckingham Palace, The King met 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Manfred Goldberg and representatives from organisations working to educate future generations about the Holocaust.”

The Palace shared that Charles “lit a candle for the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s ‘80 Candles for 80 Years’ project and explored the Holocaust Educational Trust’s new AI and virtual reality tools bringing survivor testimonies and Holocaust sites to life for students.”

The afternoon was concluded with “moving performance by Echo Eternal, a project inviting young people to create artistic responses to the testimonies of British Holocaust survivors.”

The meeting at the Palace comes just weeks ahead of Prince Harry's return to the UK in which he is expected to "protest" his father by rejecting to stay in the royal residence, per royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams.

The Duke of Sussex will be returning for his legal case against the British tabloids in February. Previously, when Harry visited the UK, reports claimed that he was offered to stay in the royal residence by his father but Harry had refused.